Homework

Parents have been debating the disproportionate amount of homework provided in schools for years, both public and private, and believe it or not, there is evidence that it may actually be helpful to support limiting the amount of homework kids have. Guidelines on the right amount of homework are published—the amount that helps children learn without getting in the way of improving other aspects of their lives.

Many experts agree that in the first grade, students should receive approximately 10 minutes of homework each night and an extra 10 minutes per grade for each subsequent year. High school seniors should have about 120 minutes or two hours of homework a night according to this norm, but some students have two hours of middle school work and many more hours than high school work, particularly if they are enrolled in Advanced or AP classes.

Nonetheless, schools are beginning to change their homework policies. While some schools associate excessive homework with excellence, and it is true that students profit from some work at home to learn new materials or practice what they have learned in school, this is not the case with all schools. Flipped classrooms, real-world learning initiatives and improvements in our perception of how best to learn for children and adolescents have all pushed schools to assess homework standards.

Homework needs to be purposeful

Fortunately, today, most teachers understand that homework is not necessarily appropriate, and the stigma that many teachers once faced if they did not delegate what was clearly viewed as adequate is gone. Eventually, the burden put on teachers to assign homework leads to teachers assigning students "busy work" rather than actual learning assignments. As we better understand how students learn, we have come to determine that they can get just as much benefit from smaller amounts of work for many students, if not more, than larger loads of homework. This awareness has allowed teachers to build more productive activities that can be accomplished in shorter periods of time.

Too Much Homework Prevents Play

Experts think playtime is more than just a nice way to spend time, it really helps children learn. Play is essential for developing creativity, imagination, and even social skills, particularly for younger kids. While many educators and parents believe that young kids are ready for direct instruction, studies have shown that when they are simply able to play, children learn better. Young kids who were shown how to make a toy squeak, for instance, only learned this one feature of the toy, while kids who were able to play on their own found several flexible uses of the toy. Older children will need time to run, play and simply explore, and parents and teachers must understand that children can learn their world through this independent time. Children running in a park, for example, intuitively learn laws about physics and the environment, and they do not take on this information by direct guidance.

Too Much Pressure Backfires

Less is always better with respect to children's learning. For instance, learning to read by about age 7 is natural for children, but there is a difference in the time individual children learn to read; children may learn from 3-7 at any time. Later growth does not equate with progress at a later age in any way, and they do not learn adequately when children who are not ready for such tasks are forced into doing them. They will feel more overwhelmed and turned off to learning, a life-long endeavor, after all. Too much homework shifts children away from learning and makes them less invested in school and learning, rather than more.

Homework Does Not Develop Emotional Intelligence

The value of emotional intelligence, which includes knowing one's own emotions and those of others, has been illustrated by recent studies. In fact, researchers assume that after people achieve a certain basic level of intelligence, the rest of their success in life and in their professions can be linked, primarily to variations in the levels of emotional intelligence of people. Doing endless amounts of homework does not leave the right amount of time for children to connect socially with family members and peers in a manner that will improve their emotional intelligence.

Fortunately, after discovering that too much work has a deleterious impact on the wellbeing of children, many schools are striving to reduce the stress of students. For instance, many schools set up no-homework weekends to provide a much-needed break for children and time to spend with family and friends.